This conference is the biggest conference in the field of biomedical
engineering in the German speaking countries.
The latest outcomes of the Brain-Computer Interface research, which
was developed out of the Presenccia project and which is used for the
experiments in Graz and the first results of the newly developed optical BCI were presented at the Conference.

This workshop is the most important workshop in the field of Brain-Computer
Interface research in Europe. All leading researchers from more than 30
groups worldwide attended. The program was spread over 3 days dealing
with various aspects and latest outcomes of BCI research.

This conference will be held under the auspices of Europe's Information Society Technologies (IST). The IST 2006 conference is the main networking event and showcase covering research and development in information society technologies. IST 2006 is being organised by the European Commission in cooperation with the Finnish Presidency of the European Union.

Mel Slater will deliver an invited talk on "Speculations on the Use of Virtual Reality in the Treatment of Polytrauma Patients" at the "Polytrauma Conference 2006". Several PRESENCCIA project members will contribute information for this talk including Prof. Gert Pfurtscheller and Mr Robert Leeb of TU Graz, Prof. Paul Verschure of UPF, Dr M. V. Sanchez-Vives of UMH, and Dr Henrik Ehrsson of Karolinska Institute.

Abstract: : This talk will present a number of studies of the
responses of people to situations and events in immersive virtual
environments. The evidence from these studies suggests that people
tend to respond to these events as if they are real, in spite of
knowing for sure that they are not. Results from studies concerned
with the use of virtual environments in psychotherapy will be
presented, and also a virtual simulation of the Stanley Milgram
obedience experiment. Immersive virtual environments may therefore
provide a research tool for social and psychological scientists and
also for policy makers, in order to investigate problems under
laboratory style conditions that would otherwise not be possible due
to practical or ethical constraints.

13. GRAPP 2007 [Keynote Lecture 2]

Abstract:
What influence does rendering style have on the responses of
participants in immersive virtual environments? In this talk we will
consider the extent of presence of participants in an immersive
virtual environment when they experience rendered with real-time ray
tracing compared with standard OpenGL style rendering. An experiment
will be described in detail, and the results presented. The question
of the impact of visual realism on presence is an open one to date,
and this experiment provides further evidence in this debate.

15. The Graz-BCI - Basic principle and applications of EEG based and NIRS based
Brain-Computer Communication. [19th March 2007, Talk by Dr. Robert Leeb at the Neurofisiopatologia Clinica, Rome, Italy]

16. UCL Science Society, talk by Prof. Mel Slater: "The Use of Virtual Reality in Research into Human Behaviour Under Conditions of Stress: A Virtual Reality Milgram Obedience Experiment." [22nd March 2007, UCL, UK]

This talk will present a number of studies of the responses of people
to situations and events in immersive virtual environments. The
evidence from these studies suggests that people tend to respond to
these events as if they are real, in spite of knowing for sure that
they are not. Results from studies concerned with the use of virtual
environments in psychotherapy will be presented, and also a virtual
simulation of the Stanley Milgram obedience experiment. Immersive
virtual environments may therefore provide a research tool for social
and psychological scientists and also for policy makers, in order to
investigate problems under laboratory style conditions that would
otherwise not be possible due to practical or ethical constraints (Invitation letter).

51. Place Illusion and Plausibility in Immersive Virtual Environments: Applications to Body Ownership Illusions and the Responses of People to Violent Incidents.SPEAKERS: Mel Slater 31st January, 2010, The Technion, Haifa, Israel.